Category: Top Dog

Had to say goodbye to my 16‑year‑old Boston terrier, Bailee, a month ago. She was my baby, not just a pet. I wasn’t ready for another dog, but last week I browsed Petfinder and ended up meeting two 8‑week‑old puppies. I couldn’t separate them, so I’m adopting both.

Here’s where I’m uneasy:

• Neither puppy is fixed, and the rescue doesn’t require proof I’ll do it which i though was required
• They aren’t microchipped and I’m pretty sure also a law.
• They haven’t been dewormed and are only being dewormed because i insisted and only got their first shots this week.

Adoption is $400 each, plus I’ll pay for spay/neuter, chipping, and more vaccines—around $1,700 total. I thought rescues were supposed to handle most of that. Are these red flags, or am I overthinking?

As post says. Six month old husky German shepherd mix we did everything such as keep safe spaces for the kitties. But I’m worried because when trying to introduce she did this mouth snapping thing and I’m not sure if she’s just playing but my cat is growling a lot. She also chased him once. I redirected but need to know if I should get a different breed; I want a dog so bad but my three cats are stressed and now separated in separate rooms for three weeks now.

Is it at all possible to integrate or is this prey drive too high? I’m beginning to give up on even being able to have a dog because this happened once before when we fostered five years ago but I thought it was just the dog. We love her, but I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to integrate into our home with the cats and I don’t want them to be miserable and definitely not in danger.

I’ve never left any of them alone with her but I don’t know if this is trainable in this breed. Please don’t be unkind, I’m just looking for honest advice on this. I miss my cats just chilling in the home and don’t know if that’ll ever be possible again.

Just brought in a new puppy (Maggie) with my 9 year old (Max) and 11 year old (Teddy). Teddy is the sweetest and easiest-going dog. Whenever Maggie (the puppy) comes up to Teddy, he just walks away.

Max is a bit of a tougher case. He's a much more territorial dog. Whenever he sees Maggie, he stiffens up and sometimes lunges at her aggressively. We have Maggie in a gated pen, and giving Max a treat everytime he looks at her calmly, I think is maybe working a little. He can be near her and not get irritated as long as she's in her pen (he did growl once with her in there tho)

We only got her ~36 hours ago, but it's worrying me a bit that they won't get along. Teddy walks away when she comes to play, which makes her a little sad, and Max is still aggressive with her. I don't want to do the wrong thing and reinforce the wrong behavior, any advice is very much appreciated

Our vet has recently recommended our old dog go on heart medication and we’ve followed his advice. When looking online to find out more about it, I’ve seen you can buy it for half the price IF you have a prescription. Same dosage, same number of tablets. Is it normal for a vet to put 100% mark up on meds? I would have thought 20-30% as reasonable, but 100% seems high. Should I raise this with him? Would a vet give me a prescription to buy online?

My parents got a second dog around December last year, and whenever we take the other dog outside they hop on the door to look at us. One time he somehow slid the door open and ran away, so now I have to put him in a crate while taking the other dog outside.

The issue is that now he barks when I let the other dog out, I assume from anxiety. My parents are adamant that their method of negative reinforcement will work, however they've been using it for over a month and no progress has been made.

I was thinking of either standing outside the door until he stops barking for a period of time? However the issue is that my other dog takes forever to finally go to the bathroom, so it'll probably be his second or third pause before I can come inside. My other idea is that I could have somebody inside to give him a treat and say "quiet" when he pauses, but I don't know how that would help when nobody else is around to tell him quiet. What should I do?

Hey everyone! I have a 10 month old husky mix and we recently started some advanced obedience as iam thinking about trying the BH exam when she gets to 15 months. I am abit confused about the correct heel position, I see many trainers teach it with eye contact during heel and other with head straight up (looking at my shoulder/using a ball to capture the straight up look), which one is the actual full points standard for competitions? Although straight up looks more flashy, eye contect feels more engaging.

I fostered a timid shelter dog about 1.5yo for 3-4 weeks. She came to me underweight, terrified, unfixed, coughing, and with some house-training issues. We made a lot of progress, good weight gain, spayed, absolutely delighted to meet new human friends, figuring out other human rules. Then, I had work shit happen and had to leave her crated to 9-10 hours, and it just wasn't fair. Even when I was home, I had to crate her or be constantly interacting with her (crate if I go to the bathroom, wash dishes, etc.) I thought it was best to return her. She cried, I cried, it was awful.

Whelp, I made the mistake of going back to the shelter and while she's still at a healthy weight, she seems more reactive and less likely to get a good home while stressed. I would love to foster her again, or do a shelter-day break, but I know I have to travel again soon, and again in the summer. My question is, would it be harmful for her to do a single-day or short-term break? The sad thing is, I really think this dog would be great for a rough-and-tumble kinda 10yo kid, and I just wanna help her find that kid. (DC, Northern Virginia area if anyone is interested)

Hi I have two female miniature schnauzers, 8 and 10 years old now. The youngest has always been very clingy towards me, but never troubled. Last fall she had a hormonal imbalance that caused her to have a phantom pregnancy. She produced milk and her breast got infected to the point where it burst. She was on hormone treatment for a while ( galastop)

Since then she's started howling when we leave for work, not for more than 5-10 minutes after someone leaves, and more recently she's begun howling uncontrollably when we come home too. This has been incredibly frustrating. It's only happened about three days in a row now, but it's been so intense that she almost turns to screaming, yelping. She almost becomes paralyzed, she can't stop herself regardless of what I do and I feel helpless. We can't go on like that. It really seems like something is wrong with her and I'm worried, day to day she is her normal happy calm self.

She has been on her period this past week and I'm wondering if there's a connection, maybe her hormones are in imbalance again and that's causing her the distress.

I don't know if this is a symptom of something else or a behavioural issue that's flared up the past days. My other dog is completely normal, but she seems concerned and confused about little sisters behaviour.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm thinking of taking her to the vet this coming week to check if they can help us.

Thanks so much. Any questions will be answered.

I’ve posted a few times now about my pup and his poop in the crate (https://www.reddit.com/r/puppy101/s/sK695iR2vN Quick run down of our situation. We brought home a puppy about 7 weeks ago. We also have a 15 month old dog that we got as a puppy as well and never had any of these issues.

New pup was pooing in his crate. Like when we were only gone for 20 mins. Turns out he had Giardia, so chalked it up to that. Slowly started back into the crate, and still had issues. Vet gave us more meds for Giardia. Things were seeming like it was clearing up. Finally felt comfortable to try leaving him again, but this time, decided block of an end to the hallway and leave his crate in it with the door open. He managed to escape by the time we got back, but no poop.

Then we tried another two times. Some barking when we got back, but managed to escape again. The one time he somehow got himself into the bathroom and couldn’t get out. This morning I had an appointment and had to leave him. I tried just doing the crate again. Did all the things. Adaptil spray, calming treat, frozen treat, poop before going in, no big goodbyes, lick mat, etc etc. But, came home to poop in the crate. So back to blocking off a bigger space. Got a higher gate. Tired him and my other dog out real good. Left this afternoon and he was as quiet as quiet can be. Came home and could hear him crying from the street. He managed to stay in his area , but he had pooped again.

I feel like I can’t blame this on the Giardia still. He has been on so many meds and the poop looks normal now. Separation anxiety? Doesn’t feel like it since he is ok when we leave. Confinement anxiety? Doesn’t feel like it because he is ok when we are there. Both?At this point i kind of what to allow home to free roam and see how it goes. But what about my other dog? I don’t want her stressed with him walking around and her crated. Maybe just try letting them both go? Do I put him in a bedroom and close the door? Obviously we will do training. But also can’t be prisoners to our house.

Hey Friends, this sub seems to have great knowledge. So I wanted to ask something. I recently got a cavapoo, she is 3.5 months old. She's having poo accidents inside the house during day time, but not at night time. At night time, she stays in my bedroom. We go to sleep around 10,30pm and wake up at 6am. In the two weeks I had her, she only had night time accident twice. But during the day time, she having accidents in the house too often. I take her out almost every hour.

For example, today we woke up around 6.30am, went outside and did our morning poo and pee. Then around 2 hours later around 9am she pooed again outside on the deck. Now another two hours later, she pooed inside the house. According to online research puppies poo anywhere around 3-6 times per day, which is fine, but I'm trying to figure out a schedule for her and it seems like, I'm not getting it.

According to the wiki page, a puppy should hold be able to last about his age in months, plus one, hours between bathroom breaks. So in this case, she should be able to hold it in around 4 hours. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing that unless it's night time.
Should I keep her on the leash all day long or in her crate during daytime? What is you suggestion?